Complete Works of George Moore

by George Moore

  ‘DEAR MISS D’ARCY, — In recognition of your beauty and the graceful way in which you play your part, I beg to enclose you a ring, which I hope to see on your finger to-night. If you wear it on the right hand I shall understand that you will allow me to wait for you at the stage-door. If, however, you decide that my little offering suits better your left hand, I shall understand that I am unfortunate.

  ‘(Signed) AN ADMIRER.’

  ‘Who left this here?’ asked Kate of the doorkeeper.

  ‘A tall young gent — a London man, I should think, by the cut of him, but he left no name.’

  ‘A very pretty ring, anyhow,’ said a girl, picking it up.

  ‘Not bad,’ said another; ‘I got one like it last year at Sheffield,’

  ‘But what shall I do with it?’ asked Kate.

  ‘Why, wear it, of course,’ answered two or three voices simultaneously.

  ‘Wear it!’ she repeated, and feeling very much like one in possession of stolen goods, she hurried on to the stage, intending to ask Dick what she was to do with the ring. She found him disputing with the property man, and it was some time before he could bring himself to forget the annoyance that a scarcity of daggers had occasioned him. At last, however, with a violent effort of will, he took the note from her hand and read it through. When he had mastered the contents a good-natured smile illumined his chub-cheeked face, and he said:

  ‘Well, what do you want to say? I think the ring a very nice one; let’s see how it looks on your hand,’

  ‘You don’t mean that I’m to wear it?’

  ‘And why not? I think it’s a very nice ring,’ the manager said unaffectedly. ‘Wear it first on one hand and then on the other, dear; that will puzzle him,’

  ‘But supposing he comes to meet me at the stage-door?’

  ‘Well, what will that matter? We’ll go out together; I’ll see that he keeps his distance. But now run up and get dressed.’

  ‘Now then, come in,’ cried Dolly, who was walking about in a pair of blue stockings. ‘You’re as bashful as an undergraduate.’

  A roar of laughter greeted this sally, and feeling humiliated, she began to dress.

  ‘You haven’t heard Dolly’s story of the undergraduate?’ shouted a girl from the other end of the room.

  ‘No, and don’t want to,’ replied Kate, indignantly. ‘The conversation in this room is perfectly horrid. I shall ask Mr. Lennox to change me. And really, Miss Goddard, I think you might manage to dress yourself with a little more decency.’

  ‘Well, if you call this dress,’ exclaimed Dolly, fanning herself. ‘I suppose one must take off one’s stockings to please you. You’re as bad as — —’

  Dolly was the wit of No. 6 dressing-room, and having obtained her laugh she sought to conciliate Kate. To achieve this she began by putting on her tights.

  ‘Now, Mrs. Lennox,’ she said, ‘don’t be angry; if I’ve a good figure I can’t help it. And I do want to hear about the diamond ring.’

  This was said so quaintly, so cunningly, as the Americans would say, that Kate couldn’t help smiling, and abandoning her hand she allowed Dolly to examine the ring.

  ‘I never saw anything prettier in my life. It wasn’t an undergra — ?’ said the girl, who was a low comedian at heart and knew the value of repetition.

  ‘I must drink to his health. Who has any liquor? Have you, Vincent?’

  ‘Just a drain left,’ said a fat girl, pulling a flat bottle out of a dirty black skirt, ‘but I’m going to keep it for the end of the second act.’

  ‘Selfishness will be your ruin,’ said Dolly. ‘Let’s subscribe to drink the gentleman’s health,’ she added, winking at the bevy of damsels who stood waiting, their hands on their hips. And it being impossible for Kate to misunderstand what was expected of her she said:

  ‘I shall be very glad to stand treat. What shall it be?’

  After some discussion it was agreed that they could not do better than a bottle of whisky. The decrepit dresser was given the money, with strict injunctions from Dolly not to uncork the bottle. ‘We can do that ourselves,’ the girl added, facetiously; and a noisy interest was manifested in the ring, the sender and the letter. Kate said that Dick had advised her to wear the ring first on one hand and then on the other.

  ‘To keep changing it from one hand to another,’ cried Dolly; ‘not a bad idea; and now to the health and success of the sender of the ring.’

  ‘I cannot drink to that toast,’ Kate answered, laying aside her glass.

  ‘That the word “success” be omitted from the toast!’ cried Dolly, and the merriment did not cease until the call-boy was heard crying, ‘Ladies, ladies! Mr. Lennox is waiting on the stage.’ Then there was a scramble for the glass and the dresser, and Dolly’s voice was heard screaming:

  ‘Now then, Mother Hubbard, have you the sweet-stuff I told you to get? I don’t want to go downstairs stinking of raw spirit.’

  ‘I couldn’t get any,’ said the old woman, ‘but I brought two slices of bread; that’ll do as well.’

  ‘You’re a knowing old card,’ said Dolly. ‘Eat a mouthful or two, it’ll take the smell off, Mrs. Lennox,’ and the girls rattled down the staircase, arriving on the stage only just in time for their cue.

  ‘Cue for soldiers’ entrance,’ the prompter cried, and on they went, Montgomery taking the music a little quicker than usual till Kate, who was now in the big eight, clean forgot how often she had changed her ring from the left hand to the right. But she did wear it on different hands, and no admirer came up and spoke to her at the stage-door. Dick was there waiting for her; she felt quite safe on his arm, and as soon as they had had a mouthful of supper they began the weekly packing.

  Next morning it was train and station, station and train, but despite many delays they managed to catch the train, and on Monday night her gracefulness was winning for her new admirers: in every town the company visited she received letters and presents; none succeeded, however, in weakening her love, or persuading her from Dick.

  ‘Yet lovers around her are sighing,’ Montgomery chuckled, and Dick began to consider seriously the means to be adopted to secure Kate’s advancement in her new profession. One night Montgomery returned home with them after the performance, bringing with him the script, and till one in the morning the twain sat together trying to devise some extra lines for the first scene in Les Cloches.

  ‘The scene,’ Dick said, ’is on the seashore. The girls are on their way to market.’

  ‘Supposing she said something like this, eh? “Mr. Baillie, do you like brown eyes and cherry lips?” And then another would reply, “Cherry brandy most like.”’

  ‘No, I don’t think the public would see the point; you must remember we’re not playing to a London public. I think we’d better have something broader.’

  ‘Well, what?’

  ‘You remember the scene in Chilpéric when — —’

  The conversation wandered; and Mr. Diprose’s version of the opera and his usual vile taste in the stage management was severely commented on. In such pleasant discussion an hour was agreeably spent; but at last the sudden extinguishing of a cigarette reminded them that they had met for the purpose of writing some dialogue. After a long silence Dick said:

  ‘Supposing she were to say, “Mr. Baillie, you’ve a fine head.” You know I want something she’d get a laugh with.’

  ‘If she said the truth, she’d say a fat head,’ replied Montgomery with a laugh.

  ‘And why shouldn’t she? That’s the very thing. She’s sure to get a laugh with that— “Mr. Baillie, you have a fat head.” Let’s get that down first. But what shall she say after?’ And in silence they ransacked their memories for a joke which could be fitted to the one they had just discovered.

  After some five minutes of deep consideration, and wearied by the unaccustomed mental strain put upon his mind, Dick said:

  ‘Do you know the music of Trône d’Écosse? Devilish good. If the book had been better it would hav
e been a big success.’

  ‘The waltz is about the prettiest thing Hervé has done.’

  This expression of opinion led up to an animated discussion, in which the rival claims of Hervé and Planquette were forcibly argued. Many cigarettes were smoked, and not until the packet was emptied did it occur to them that only one ‘wheeze’ had been found.

  ‘I never can do anything without a cigarette; do try to find me one in the next room, Kate, dear. Listen, Montgomery, we’ve got “Baillie, you’ve a fat head.” That’ll do very well for a beginning; but I’m not good at finding wheezes.’

  ‘And then I can say, “Baillie, you’ve a fine head,”’ said Kate, who had been listening dreamily for a long time, afraid to interrupt.

  ‘Not a bad idea,’ said Dick. ‘Let’s get it down.’

  ‘And then,’ screamed Montgomery, as he perched both his legs over the arm of his chair, ‘she can say, “I mean a great head, Mr. Baillie.”’

  For a moment Dick’s eyes flashed with the light of admiration, and he seemed to be considering if it were not his duty to advise the conductor that his talents lay in dialogue rather than in music. But his sentiments, whatever they may have been, disappeared in the burst of inspiration he had been waiting for so long.

  ‘We can go through the whole list of heads,’ he exclaimed triumphantly. ‘Fat head, fine head, broad head, thick head, massive head — yes, massive head. The Baillie will appear pleased at that, and will repeat the phrase, and then she will say “Dunderhead!” He’ll get angry, and she’ll run away. That’ll make a splendid exit — she’ll exit to a roar.’

  Dick noted down the phrases on a piece of paper, to be pasted afterwards into the script. When this was done, he said:

  ‘My dear, if you don’t get a roar with these lines, you can call me a —— . And when we play the piece at Hull, I shouldn’t be surprised if you got noticed in the papers. But you must pluck up courage and check the Baillie. We must put up a rehearsal to-morrow for these lines. Now listen, Montgomery, and tell me how it reads.’

  XV

  ‘REHEARSAL TO-MORROW AT twelve for all those in the front scene of the Cloches,’ cried the stage-door keeper to half-a-dozen girls as they pushed past him.

  ‘Well I never! and I was going out to see the castle and the ramparts of the town,’ said one girl.

  ‘I wonder what it’s for,’ said another; ‘it went all right, I thought — didn’t you? Did you hear any reason, Mr. Brown?’

  ‘I ‘ear there are to be new lines put in,’ replied the stage-door keeper, surlily, ‘but I don’t know. Don’t bother me.’

  At the mention of the new lines the faces of the girls brightened, but instantly they strove to hide the hope and anxiety the announcement had caused them, and in the silence that followed each tried to think how she could get a word with Mr. Lennox. At length one more enterprising than the rest said:

  ‘I must run back. I’ve forgotten my handkerchief.’

  ‘You needn’t mind your handkerchief, you won’t see Mr. Lennox to-night,’ exclaimed Dolly, who always trampled on other people’s illusions as readily as she did on her own. ‘The lines aren’t for you nor me, nor any of us,’ she continued. ‘You little silly, can’t you guess who they’re for? For his girl, of course!’

  Murmurs of assent followed this statement, and, her hands on her hips, Dolly triumphantly faced her auditors.

  ‘It’s damned hard, but you can’t expect the man to take her out of her linen-drapery for nothing.’

  The old stage-door keeper, whose attention had been concentrated on what he was eating out of a jam-pot, now suddenly woke up to the fact that the passage was blocked, and that a group of musicians with boxes in their hands were waiting to get through.

  ‘Now, ladies, I must ask you to move on; there’re a lot of people behind you.’

  ‘Yes, get on, girls; we’re all up a tree this time, and the moral of it is that we haven’t yet learnt how to fall in love with the manager. The paper-collar woman has beaten us at our own game.’

  A roar of laughter followed this remark, which was heard by everybody, and pushing the girls before her, Dolly cleared the way.

  These girls, whose ambitions in life were first to obtain a line — that is to say, permission to shout, in their red tights, when the low comedian appears on the stage, ‘Oh, what a jolly good fellow the Duke is!’ — secondly, to be asked out to dinner by somebody they imagine looks like a gentleman, revolted against hearing this paper-collar woman, as they now called her, speak the long-dreamed-of, long-described phrases; and at night they did everything they dared to ‘queer’ her scene. They crowded round her, mugged, and tried to divert the attention of the house from her.

  She had to say, ‘Mr. Baillie, you’ve a fine head.’ Baillie (patting his crown): ‘Yes, a fine head!’ Kate: ‘A fat head.’ Baillie (indignantly): ‘A fat head!’ Kate (hurriedly): ‘I mean a broad head.’ Baillie: ‘Yes, a broad head.’ Kate: ‘A thick head.’ Baillie (indignantly): ‘A thick head!’ Kate: ‘No, no; a solid head.’ And so on ad lib. for ten minutes.

  The scene went splendidly. The pit screamed, and the gallery was in convulsions, and in the street next day nothing was heard but ironical references to fat and thick heads. The girls had not succeeded in spoiling the scene, for, encouraged by the applause, Kate had chaffed and mocked at the Baillie so winningly that she at once won the sympathy of the house. But the following night a tall, sour-faced girl, who wore pads, and with whom Kate had had some words concerning her coarse language, hit upon an ingenious device for ‘queering the scene!’ Her trick was to burst into a roar of laughter just before she had time to say, ‘A fat head.’ The others soon tumbled to the trick, and in a night or two they worked so well together that Kate grew nervous and she could not speak her lines. This made her feel very miserable; and her stage experience being limited, she ascribed her non-success to her own fault, until one night Dick rushed on to the stage as soon as the curtain was down, and putting up his arms with a large gesture, he called the company back.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I’ve noticed that the front scene in this act has not been going as well as it used to. I don’t want anyone to tell me why this is so; the reason is sufficiently obvious, at least to me. I shall expect, therefore, the ladies whom this matter concerns to attend a rehearsal to-morrow at twelve, and if after that I notice what I did tonight, I shall at once dismiss the delinquents from the company. I hope I make myself understood.’

  After this explanation, any further interference with Kate’s scene was, of course, out of the question, and the verdict of each new town more and more firmly established its success. But if Dick’s presence controlled the girls whilst they were on the stage, his authority did not reach to the dressing-rooms. Kate’s particular enemy was Dolly Goddard. Not a night passed that this girl did not refer to the divorce cases she had read of in the papers, or pretended to have heard of. Her natural sharp wit enabled her to do this with considerable acidity. ‘Never heard such a thing in my life, girls,’ she would begin. ‘They talk of us, but what we do is child’s play compared with the doings of the respectable people. A baker’s wife in this blessed town has just run away with the editor of a newspaper, leaving her six little children behind her, one of them being a baby no more than a month old.’

  ‘What will the husband do?’

  ‘Get a divorce.’ (Chorus— ‘He’ll get a divorce, of course, of course, of course!’)

  To this delicate irony no answer was possible, and Kate could only bite her lips, and pretend not to understand. But it was difficult not to turn pale and tremble sometimes, so agonizing were the anecdotes that the active brain of Dolly conjured up concerning the atrocities that pursuing husbands had perpetrated with knife and pistol on the betrayers of their happiness. And when these scarecrows failed, there were always the stories to fall back upon. A word sufficed to set the whole gang recounting experiences, and comparing notes. A sneer often curled the corners of Kate
’s lips, but to protest she knew would be only to expose herself to a rude answer, and to appeal to Dick couldn’t fail to excite still further enmity against her. Besides, what could he do? How could he define what were and what were not proper conversations for the dressing-rooms? But she might ask him to put her to dress with the principals, and this she decided to do one evening when the words used in No. 6 had been more than usually warm.

  Dick made no objection, and with Leslie and Beaumont Kate got on better.

  ‘I’m so glad you’ve come,’ said Leslie, as she bent to allow the dresser to place a wreath of orange-blossom on her head. ‘I wonder you didn’t think of asking Mr. Lennox to put you with us before.’

  ‘I didn’t like to. I was afraid of being in your way,’ Kate answered. ‘I hope Beaumont won’t mind my being here.’

  ‘What matter if she does? Beaumont isn’t half a bad sort once you begin to understand her. Just let her talk to you about her diamonds and her men, and it will be all right.’

  ‘But why haven’t you been to see me lately? I want you to come out shopping with me one day next week. We shall be at York. I hear there are some good shops there.’

  ‘Yes, there are, and I should have been to see you before, but Frank has just got some new scores from London, and he wanted me to try them over with him. There’s one that’s just been produced in Paris — the loveliest music you ever heard in all your life. Come up to my place to-morrow and I’ll play it over to you. But talking of music, I hear that you’re getting on nicely.’

  ‘I think I’m improving; Montgomery comes to practise with me every morning.’

  ‘He’s all very well for the piano, but he can’t teach you to produce your voice. What does he know? That brat of a boy! I’ll tell you what I’ll do,’ cried Leslie, suddenly confronting Kate: ‘we’re going to York next week. Well, I’ll introduce you to a first-rate man. He’d do more with you in six lessons than Montgomery in fifty. And the week after we shall be at Leeds. I can introduce you to another there.’